A New Church Spreads The Gospel To The SouthShore Community

Bell Shoals Apollo Beach campus is currently working on adding a 750-seat multi-purpose building, a 5,000-sq.-ft. building to house children and teen programs and will be ready for use by June of this year.

The poet Maya Angelou once said, “Living a life is like constructing a building, if you start strong, you’ll end strong.”

The Tampa Bay Baptist Association (TBBA) had a similar vision for one of its churches, the Apollo Beach Community Church. The church’s pastor had taken ill and attendance was down to about 18-20 members a week, so the TBBA approached Dr. George Thomasson , senior associate pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, about his church talking to the leaders of the Apollo Community Church to form a merger.

“After several meetings and much prayer, we sensed the Lord’s leadership to move forward,” Thomasson said. The church held its first service in October of l2011 and since that service, the church’s highest attendance has been 260 members.

“I am very excited about this new work and our goal is to begin other new campuses like this one in the SouthShore area,” Thomasson said.

The church began offering two Sunday worship services in March and plans on having the church’s grand opening on Easter Sunday. It is hoped that 400 people will be in attendance for the holiday service.

“It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people and our worship and ministry approaches have seemed to meet an unmet need,” Thomasson said. “We are very excited to network with other congregations in the area and I have begun relationships with several of the other pastors.”

The church is currently working on adding a 750-seat multi-purpose building. It is also adding a 5,000-sq.-ft. building to house children and teen programs. This building will be ready for use by June of this year. The church would also like to add three to four more new campuses to the SouthShore area within the next five years.

The Apollo Beach Campus of Bell Shoals Baptist Church is located at 6414 Golf and Sea Blvd. For more information about the services or ministries offered at the new campus, call 777-7892 or visit www.bellshoals.com.

Libby is a writer for The Osprey Observer/The Christian Voice. She started as an intern in 2009 and upon finishing her internship, she was asked to stay on as a permanent writer for both papers. Libby lives in Brandon with her two rescue dogs, Olive and Bogey.